Benefits of Collage for Young Children

Collage is one of my absolute favorite art activities to do with little ones for so many reasons! It’s inherently open ended, and there truly is no right or wrong way to collage. As a teacher it is so helpful to be able to put out what ever materials you currently have access to – which is a great way to use those supplies that you always seem to have a surplus of – and know that children will be engaged in an activity with very little input from you.

There are a number of obvious developmental benefits from practicing collage. These include fine motor skills like cutting, tearing, and gluing, as well as spatial awareness and planning and carrying out that plan. There are also a number of benefits that only become apparent once you’ve truly observed children working with collage materials.

Watching a group of children create their own collages can be a masterclass in social development. They have to share supplies, often negotiating with each other to get the pieces that they want. They also notice each other’s work and often imitate the artistic choices that they see others making. And, as always, anytime that you gather a group of preschoolers their conversations are absolutely worth observing!

Collage materials can pose a number of problem solving opportunities. A child may want a specific piece of a certain material and they have to figure out how to make that happen. There can often be a the challenge of figuring out how to attach items to the background that you’re using (have you ever tried to stick a pom pom to a piece of paper with a glue stick?!). Then there’s the entire process of making all of the items you love and can’t live without fit on the same background.

Each child approaches a collage opportunity differently. Some children will quickly glue two or three items on and call it a day, while others will sit with their work for extended periods of time, painstakingly piecing it together with every possible material. Sometimes they’ll have an in-depth explanation of why they chose each item and put it in that specific place, but sometimes a simple “because I liked it there” will suffice.

This may seem like such a simple activity, but it truly supports so many different skills! It’s also super easy to make collage fit just about any season or theme, depending on the items that you make available to work with. Choosing specific colors, using natural materials, adding pre-cut pieces, and authentic materials like Christmas gift wrap or empty seed packets will support your themes while still offering children the opportunity to make plenty of their own decisions.

I’m a huge fan of open ended art, and collage is one of the easiest ways to offer that in the preschool classroom. In addition to being truly simple, it supports development every single time!